Solyndra: Green Jobbery, Green Robbery

We have come to learn something about our president. He really loves green. But what we can’t quite decipher is if that green is green jobs and energies or just the good old fashioned green of tax money. Whatever the case, it sure is true that the green of U.S. tax dollars is far more prevalent with “O” than those mythical green jobs he’s trying to fund with it and this mess with failed green company Solyndra is revealing quite a lot.

Left-wing organization The Center for American Progress is trying to take the spotlight off Obama and Biden and off the current administration’s culpability for the millions in tax dollars given Solyndra by informing everyone that the first time a federal loan to the green company was broached was during the waning weeks of George W. Bush’s presidency.

Strangely, CAP tries to make Walmart out to be culpable in this deal because Walmart was one of the donors that had early interest in Solyndra. Amusingly, while CAP is attacking Walmart for donating to some Republicans, they some how forget to mention that Walmart also helps fund the Center for American Progress!

That aside, CAP tries to absolve Obama by claiming that Bush wanted to “conditionally approve the Solyndra loan just before President Obama took office.”

To which I say… so what? Just because Bush got it wrong does that mean Obama is absolved? Remember the ages old saying your Mom always gave you when you copied a buddy’s wrong doing? “If your buddy jumped off the Empire State Building, would you do it too,” she’d say sarcastically. It applies well here.

Further, the loan was never given during Bush’s term, so even if he and his administration thought it might be a good idea, it was never finalized.

In an another amusing bit of conceit, CAP’s writer wraps up his blame Bush piece with this: “What critics fail to mention is that the Solyndra deal is more than three years old, started under the Bush Administration, which tried to conditionally approve the loan right before Obama took office. Rather than ‘pushing funds out the door too quickly,’ the Obama Administration restructured the original loan when it came into office to further protect the taxpayers’ investment.”

The fact is, though, Obama really didn’t do anything “to further protect the taxpayers’ investment.” The loan went to a failed company. It was wasted.

There is even more proof that this attempt to blame Bush is lame. ABC News reports that two weeks before Bush left office, his administration voted against offering the loan.

The White House also noted to ABC News that the Bush administration was the first to consider Solyndra’s application and that some executives at the company have a history of donating to Republicans. The results of the Congressional probe shared Tuesday with ABC News show that less than two weeks before President Bush left office, on January 9, 2009, the Energy Department’s credit committee had voted against offering a loan commitment to Solyndra.

This pretty much makes the left’s attempt to blame Bush a bit untenable.

Additionally, we have discovered that the claim by CAP that Obama somehow tried to slow the process to make it “protect the taxpayers’ investment” seems to be balderdash anyway. Reports are emerging that the Office of Management and Budget actually rushed through the loan during Obama’s term. Apparently OMB kept after the issuance of the loan until it went through. They were hardly trying to sow anything down.

As Stiles notes, this new loan is more than double the wasted $522 million wasted on Solyndra. Worse, the new loan, “works out to about $1.3 million per job created, which seems to be par for the course when it comes to these types of ventures. And because most of those (construction) jobs will presumably be temporary, the real figure is actually much higher.”

Just more incredible waste. of our tax money by Obama and his minions. And how long will it be until this firm ends up on the ash heap of failed companies that Obama has enthusiastically endorsed?

Warner Todd Huston

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago-based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, BigJournalsim.com and all Breitbart News' other sites, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, and many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs across the country to discuss his opinion editorials and current events as well as appearing on TV networks such as CNN, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and various Chicago-based news programs.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the book "Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture" which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com.
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